COMPETENCE NEEDED Remember him? I don't want to hear shit …

I absolutely detest this shit. As a preacher, I actually joked about starting the PBI or the Preacher Bureau of Investigation where I form a group that randomly investigates preachers. In many ways, I have felt some black churches have done great damage to black people.

We need our own investigatory agency that keeps preachers under surveillance. Not like J. Edgar Hoover but more like some "To Catch a Predator" w/Chris Jansen type shit. Its more of this shit going on than U think. What's sicker is how quick Negroes quickly 4give these mafuckas.

Black folk are in dire need of a new theology. This hyperfocus on forgiveness & love will be the end of us. We have perverted the ministry of Jesus Christ. Somehow Christians have gotten a monopoly on the understanding of Christ. There were a group of people who followed Christ -

for almost 100 years before Christianity was ever institutionalized as a religion. They didn't have no church, no choir, no pastor, no offering, or no nothing. They were just armed with a witness of a black man who led a protest against the Roman government & was executed for it.

It's only when these group of mafuckas decided to institutionalize, incorporate & franchise Christ that we wind up getting the bullshit we have today. Hear me. In America, we got the wrong Jesus. The real Jesus was much more powerful & transformative than-

the Jesus preached in churches today. Thats how a nigga like Henry Lyons can become President of the National Baptist Convention, get convicted of racketeering & grand theft of $4 million, go to prison for 5 years, get released & go right back to pastoring a black church only to-

get fired again for theft & "other misconduct." I find this shit maddening. Time & Time again, I have seen crooks in black organizations get away with murder only to be "forgiven in the name of Jesus," given a slap on the wrist, told to "go & sin no more," & be returned right-

back to the position they fucked black people in. Argggggh. I've seen this happen not only in black churches, but HBCUs, black civic organizations & w/black politicians. Sickening. This is also a major source of my racial fatalism, right along with white supremacy.

Part of the reason I am pessimistic about our odds of defeating white supremacy is not because of white people, but b/c of "Us." We refuse to let go of white supremacy's anchors in our community & a big part of that is White Jesus, corrupt black preachers who peddle White Jesus &

our inability to recognize mediocrity by constantly putting likability over competence. I've seen it too much. I need you to get what I'm saying. The brilliant & intellectually inclined have difficult time navigating America in general, but in the black community, it is next to-

impossible for brilliant black people to rise to leadership positions in the black community. Mediocrity win out. Think Julian Bond losing a Congressional election against John Lewis in 1986. Are you fucking kidding me? Before you react with outrage over that remark, stop what-

you're doing & go & just pull up two random speeches from John Lewis & Julian Bond. No comparison. John Lewis was run off the Atlanta City Council b/c of his incompetence. I was one of his constituents for years. In fact, one of his old Vine City constituents put it this way:

"John ain't done much up 'dere in Congress, but at least we got a good civil rights symbol to remind white folks." Real talk. Negroes in love w/symbols over substance. Pull Lewis Congressional record & research how many pieces of legislation he authored. Then compare that to the-

greatest black Congressman to ever live, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., who authored "49 pieces of bedrock legislation" during his time in Congress. 1 of my law school classmates abruptly resigned from John Lewis' staff & when asked why, he replied, "When John Lewis came to the floor,

no matter the issue. Whether it was foreign policy, domestic policy, taxes or even climate change, it always came down 2 when he marched from Selma to Montgomery. I just got tired of that shit. He's incompetent & his constituents deserve better." Well, in 1986, they had "Better"

And Better's name was Julian Bond. Research it for yourself. Look up Julian Bond's 12 year record in the Georgia legislature & the voluminous amount of legislation he authored. He was such a force to be reckoned with that white legislators tried to prevent him from being seated-

in 1966. That shit went all the way to the Supreme Court where they ruled in his favor in a landmark free speech case. He went on to serve 4 terms which included founding the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus. Bond was a legislative tour de force. Hell he was even nominated for

Vice President of the United State in 1968. When Bond declared his Congressional Candidacy, the democratic elite lined up behind him. But get this. It was John Lewis, in the heat of the campaign, who floated a false rumor from Bond's ex-wife that Bond was a cocaine addict.

This caused many voters to turn on Bond & ultimately cost him the election. Now, it's important to note that this Congressional District was actually drawn up by Julian Bond during his time in the Georgia legislature. What Bond didn' count on was how his brilliance, his diction &

intellect would be used against him by the inarticulate Lewis who mimicked more of the uneducated populace of this district than Bond. Like most voters, Negroes voted 4 the candidate that most reminded them of their inarticulate selves & n2 the halls of Congress walked John Lewis

Sidebar. This is why I abandoned purely academic language long ago b/c it is alienating to the uneducated. W/all my education, I work very hard at vacillating back & forth from the academic intellectual to hood intellectual. Both are needed. In communicating with our people,

profanity is needed as much as nonprofane language. I try to meet people where they are at the level of their pain & trauma. Sometimes highfalutin language doesn't cut it. A vast portion of black life can only be described as shit, goddamn, Ass Fuck. Black existence IS profane.

Nevertheless, Dr. King battled this incessantly. If U pull up his last sermon, there's a part in there where he describes the behavior of pompous black churches as having "a thin veneer of religiosity." W/in earshot of the microphone, U can here some1 say, "whateva dat is" & the-

congregation bursts out laughing. So instead of this dumb mafucka picking up a dictionary to understand what the word "veneer" or "religiosity" means, dis mafucka would rather make fun of DrKing. That right there is what we are fighting against in the black community, mediocrity.

And this mediocrity is not an anomaly. Most black people were made mediocre by the institution of slavery, which did not provide any opportunity for education or advancement. White folks purposely bred mediocrity & most of "Us" fail to recognize just how far behind we are.

Thus, we unknowingly welcome bondage as a comforter because we know bondage. Freedom for us is an impostor. When any one of us rises and speaks different from the rest, we are automatically suspicious. This allowed John Lewis to weaponize Julian Bond's articulateness against him.

Meanwhile, Lewis, w/his downhome country drawl, broken English & common man vernacular seemed more accessible 2 more black Atlantans than Bond. The irony here is that Lewis' was mistaken for unintelligence & a lack of cunning. Lewis could be just as cunning the politician.

This is how the false rumor about Bond's alleged cocaine addiction came out in the nth hour of the '86 campaign. Not only that, but think about how John Lewis exited. He refuse to abandon his last reelection b/c he knew GA Dems had the power to unilaterally pick his successor.

Thus, despite a terminal diagnosis by doctors who told him he would probably be dead B4 the election, Lewis stayed on the ballot. This allowed Lewis to handpick his successor in Nikema Williams. This meant Williams got a free Congressional seat w/o having to run b/c

GA Dem rules allows 4 the state party 2 circumvent voters &appoint some1 if the nominee dies b4 the gen'l election. This is flat out corrupt. I need U 2 fully comprehend what Lewis did. The man who supposedly spent his entire life crossing a bridge that only takes 5 min. 2 cross,

the man who supposedly marched for all of "Us" to have a right to vote literally gimmicked the political system with his last breath in order to deny black Atlantans the right to vote for the candidate of their choice. Lewis posthumously selected his successor & GA Dems-

rubber stamped it. Put simply, John Lewis may have been "the conscience of Congress," but he was not the competence of Congress. Visit Atlanta for yourself & witness just how bad his black constituents are doing. Now imagine how much better they'd be doing if Julian Bond had won.

Herein lies the choice 4 black people going forward. Can we recognize mediocrity & keep it off ballots, out of HBCU presidencies, off boards & out of leadership positions of any kind OR will we consciously choose excellence over the incompetent minds that enrich & exploit?

We are all fighting for the hearts and the minds of the ignorant. Experience matters little here. We need people who can see outside of their experience. Those who can't are blind people. Merit should always trump likability. Otherwise, our society delves into an American Idol -

popularity contest where likability always wins out over competence. Many politicians & preachers go into these fields with monetary gain & fame on their mind. This is very problematic, especially for preachers, who are supposed to be emulating a man who travelled the Earth w/o-

desire for Earthly things. Our ability to choose competence over likability may very well determine if we ever taste an ounce of freedom. My fatalism requires me wagering that we will do none of neither. To believe otherwise requires hope. Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate.